The key moment has come for the women’s national basketball team at the AmeriCup tournament.
Puerto Rico faces Colombia tonight, at 9:00 pm, at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, in San Juan, in their most important duel.
The Olympians – who finished second in Group B with 3-1 – are playing their ticket to the semifinal of the continental competition and to the Qualifying tournament for the 2022 World Cup, in Australia.
A defeat against the coffee makers – third in Group A with 2-2 – would mean stopping the continuation of the national program until 2023 or trying to qualify for the World Cup by winning the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, something that would really be unattainable.
But manager Jerry Batista and some Puerto Rican players know the Colombians very well.
In the last three years, Puerto Rico and Colombia have met twice. The first was at the 2018 Barranquilla Central American and Caribbean Games, where the South Americans made history by defeating the Puerto Ricans 63-59 in the semifinal round.
In that regional tournament, Colombia ended up winning the gold medal by defeating Cuba, while Puerto Rico won the bronze medal.
Then, the second meeting was in 2019, at the Pan American Games in Lima, where Puerto Rico came out through the wide door 66-55 in the match for the bronze medal.
“We know them well,” acknowledged Batista. “It is a good and great team that has been playing together for a while. We know that this tournament is of the first order, that all the teams are good, that we had a good group and that we were going to have four good games that prepared us well for that game against Colombia, ”he explained.
From Barranquilla to San Juan, the Colombian quintet has practically the same core of players, such as veterans Yaneth Arias, Mabel Martínez, Mayra Caicedo, Manuela Ríos and Narlyn Mosquera. For the AmeriCup they integrated an 18-year-old player named Daniela González, who is one of the promises of Colombian women’s basketball.
For its part, Puerto Rico also has more or less the same core of veterans, although with the integration of several young players.
The average age of both sets is 27 years.
“My players know what we are here for and are focused on what the goal is, which is first to qualify in the top four and then to put ourselves in a position to win medals. That is what we want and we are focused on that. We are going to prepare very well and they are going to see a Puerto Rican team well prepared for the game against Colombia, ”said Batista, who will again have Pamela Rosado (hand) and Jazmon Gwathmey (finger).
The winning team of the match between Puerto Rico and Colombia will face the winner of Canada vs. Dominican Republic (3:10 pm). The other pairings are United States vs. Virgin Islands (12:10 pm), and Brazil vs. Venezuela (6:10 pm).
The winning teams advance to the semifinal round, which will be on Friday, starting at 6:00 in the afternoon. The best two advance to the final duel for the gold medal, on Saturday, at 9:00 pm; and the losers will fight for the bronze medal, at 6:00 pm